Damien Echols On ‘Life After Death’

Documentary subject Damien Wayne Echols from the film West of Memphis poses for a portrait Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP)

Damien Echols spent 18 years on Arkansas’s death row for a crime he says he didn’t commit.

In 1994, he and two other men were convicted for the murder of the three eight year old boys and became known as the West Memphis Three.

The case against them was controversial, and according to many, flawed. It featured a botched investigation, a coerced confession, allegations of jury tampering and Satanic rituals. And years after their conviction, DNA testing failed to link the three to evidence at the crime scene, and pressure grew to free them.

In 2011, after almost two decades in jail, they were released — in a complicated deal that fell short of full exoneration.